


take me through the night

by cold_nights_summer_days



Series: Anchor [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Comfortember, Day Two, Fluff, Gen, Homeless Peter Parker, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Tony POV, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark-centric, first day/night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27354475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_nights_summer_days/pseuds/cold_nights_summer_days
Summary: day two: First Day/Night - this is the phone call + afterwords in Tony's POV from the main story, so I suggest reading that first, but you don't have to!-----Tony hadn’t been expecting a call in the middle of the night from a kid asking him if this is what death felt like. Once he remembered that Peter had tried to call him andhe slept through it, he felt even worse.
Relationships: Helen Cho & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Anchor [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996039
Comments: 9
Kudos: 197
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	take me through the night

**Author's Note:**

> hey! hello! hola! I hope y'all had an amazing day/night and that you're all doing well <3 
> 
> as mentioned above, this takes place near the end of the main story, so I hope you guys enjoy it and I can't wait to see you all tomorrow!
> 
> chapter title from Darkside by Alan Walker, quite literally just because that's the song I'm listening to right now. to be fair, it does actually fit xD

Tony hadn’t been expecting a call in the middle of the night from a kid asking him if this is what death felt like. Once he remembered that Peter had tried to call him and he slept through it, he felt even worse.

After he found Peter in the fourth alleyway he checked, Tony had hastily buckled him up in the backseat before tossing the kid’s backpack in after him. After a quick call to Cho – “ _Please get here as soon as possible,_ ” – Tony pulled out into the street and did his best to speed and not hit pedestrians. He didn’t need two hospital visits tonight.

Peter started mumbling something in the backseat, but Tony couldn’t quite make out the words. He turned around briefly to check on Peter and found him pulling at the seatbelt.

“Don’t do that,” Tony said, glancing intermittently between Peter and the road. (There wasn’t much traffic right now, thank _god_ ).

“It’s _too much,_ ” Peter mumbled just coherent enough for Tony to hear.

“What’s too much?” Tony wished there were more he could do for Peter right now than talk to him. I should have brought a first aid kit or something. Don’t they come with fever reducing pills?

“Everything . . . s’all too much. Everything _hurts,_ ” Peter answered. He tried tugging at the seat belt again, but after he was unable to find the release, left it alone. Tony was grateful he didn’t have to deal with Peter trying to un-buckle himself anymore.

“We’ll be there soon, okay? Then we can give you the good stuff and it won’t hurt so much anymore.”

Peter didn’t answer this time, and Tony glanced back to find him passed out with his forehead pressed to the window. He couldn’t decide whether it was better or worse that he’d stopped responding.

Peter had intermittent bouts of consciousness while Cho tried to work on him. The key word was “tried” because she couldn’t figure out was wrong with him. Tony had been hovering ever since they’d arrived, but Cho didn’t mention it because she knew he wouldn’t go anywhere even if she asked him to.

“Please make it stop,” Peter cried, interrupting the confused silence that had fallen in the room. His eyes were screwed shut but tears still fell. Tony cursed himself for not realizing he was awake sooner.

“I’m trying, but we can’t figure out what’s wrong with you just yet,” Cho answered calmly, moving back to the bedside to try and examine Peter again. Tony asked Cho if there was anything they could give him to take at least some of the pain away, but Cho shook her head.

“Not until I figure out why he burned through the last dose. I don’t want to risk him overdosing. I’m going to need to do some blood work.”

If possible, Peter paled more at the mention of a needle. He shook his head and tried to say no. With nothing else to do to comfort him, Tony ran his fingers through Peter’s matted curls to try and comfort him. Absentmindedly, he thought about the fact that he should probably schedule a haircut for the kid. If he decided to stay, of course.

After this, though, Tony wasn’t sure he’d be able to let him go.

“Ben, please don’t make me,” Peter said. Cho looked to Tony, perhaps wondering if he knew who Ben was. He mouthed the words, “It’s his uncle,” to her before refocusing his attention on Peter. He wasn’t going to tell him that he wasn’t Ben, that he wasn’t gone. If this was the only way to comfort him, then that was okay.

“I’m sorry, kiddo, but we have to do this. I promise after that it won’t hurt so terribly,” He said. Just after, Cho reassured Peter that it was only going to take a minute and would barely hurt. Peter did his best to stay still, but he was still shaking enough that Tony had to hold his arm still.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Tony asked, but Peter was already unconscious again. He sighed in relief. It was easier for the both of them if Peter stayed asleep until they could at least figure out what was wrong, if not have a cure ready.

“Sleep well, kiddo,” Tony whispered just loud enough for himself to hear. “God knows you need it.”

The longer Peter stayed asleep, the more Tony worried. Cho, stoic as she was, started showing signs of concern, too.

“I don’t know how to explain this,” Cho said tiredly after examining Peter’s blood work. Peter was sleeping ten feet away, but it had been hours since he’d last woken up briefly.

“Is he dying?” Tony asked, mind immediately jumping to the worst conclusion possible. Cho shook her head, but the look on her face wasn’t reassuring.

“Well, I looked at the blood work, and he isn’t exactly . . . human anymore,” Cho said slowly. Tony blinked at her.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your best guess?”

“I honestly don’t have one. Some of the gene patterns don’t match any known human DNA, so I looked at it closer, and it looked like his cells were reforming with some slight alterations.”

“What kind of “slight” alterations?” Tony didn’t bother trying to keep the panic out of his voice. Cho would see right through him anyways.

“It doesn’t seem like anything major—he’s not going to magically change species or anything – but he might get some new abilities out of this.”

“Like superhero abilities?”

Cho nodded. “Possibly. It’ll be hard to know until he wakes up and we can actually test some of these things out.”

“Oh my god,” Tony muttered, burying his face in his hands. “How do I always get myself into the weirdest situations?”

“Seems to be your talent, Mr. Stark,” Cho replied with a faint laugh. “Besides all that stuff, though, he seems to be more stable now. It will probably be a while before he wakes up though.”

Tony asked how long, and Cho shrugged.

“I’ve never dealt with DNA rewriting itself. At least a few more hours, if not days, though. His cells must be expending a crazy amount of energy for this sort of transformation. It’s definitely enough time for you to head upstairs and sleep, though.”

“I probably won’t be able to.”

“Still, you should try. It’s not healthy to stay awake as long as you do?”

“Who are you, my doctor?” Tony tried to joke. Cho nodded.

“Yes. And I’m telling you to try and get some sleep. Don’t forget about those melatonin pills I gave you a few months ago. There’s no shame in needing some help falling asleep.”

Tony promised he’d try to sleep, but he didn’t make any promises on how well it may or may not go.

“Peter is awake, sir,” FRIDAY said, startling Tony out of the silence in the kitchen.

“Shit, really?” He said. FRIDAY replied with yes, and Tony suddenly felt like he was going to freak out. Peter had been asleep for nearly three days. Tony, on the other hand, had been awake for about three days. Even with all that time, he hadn’t quite figured out what he was going to say.

Or maybe he’d figured out what he was going to say, and he was just afraid that Peter was going to say no.

With a deep breath, Tony composed himself as best he could and walked down the hall to check on Peter. Even from the hallway he could still smell the faint scent of fresh paint from where he’d changed the shade of blue again last week. With his mind desperate for anything else to focus on, he wondered if that was really the right shade of blue because the guy at home depot had said that it was a nice middle ground between navy and robin’s egg blue and—

_Stop it. Just open the door. You can’t avoid this forever._

Later that day, Tony would wonder why he was so worried. He’d been ready to ask that question since he’d foolishly let Peter go back to living on the streets. Peter hadn’t been ready then, but for the first time, Tony didn’t mind waiting. He’d needed the time to get himself together, after all, to make sure he was in a position to take care of Peter in the ways he still needed.

Peter’s words would stay with him forever – for as long as he lived, and surely long after he was gone.

_“Nobody’s really bothered to ask me what I want since my aunt and uncle died. Nobody’s cared since then. I just kind of forgot what it felt like.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! I should (hopefully) be back with the next prompt! 
> 
> If you want to read more, check out/subscribe to the series!
> 
> [Here's my tumblr! ](https://funky--lil--spider.tumblr.com/)  
>    
> Also, I've opened my comissions if you'd be interested in that!
> 
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